EVE General Discussion

Hi I'm new to Eve and I have to say I like the basics of the game and I think it have an amazing foundation but could do more to attract new players. My issue atm stems from the fact I feel like the mature players have such a leg up in every possible way and even with a year of play time it seems near impossible to even enter their playing field. So my suggestion is simple to CCP offer new accounts the option of accelerated training.. Something like 3x normal skill rate would help bring new players more quickly into the greater Eve verse. I understand some Vets might have issues with this as they did indeed play through the difficult times of Eve and my response is simple.. Do you want Eve to grow because I can personally attest that the learning curve is fine but the point curve is a problem.

You're too late. What you're asking for has already happened.
Also, the gap you're worried about doesn't actually exist.

If there is a problem, it is equating skill points to actual player skill.... speeding up the first does not speed up the latter

Can you elaborate why this system is good for Eve?

There's next to nothing to suggest that it would. When your idea was implemented, it had almost the opposite effect. A few iterations later and we've arrived at the current strategy for raising the bar for new players, and it too doesn't really affect the health of the game.

It seems to be a fairly reasonable conclusion that the new player starting point is pretty much wholly unrelated to player retention. The actual problem is more one of new players making the same erroneous assumptions you're making, often based on completely different and unrelated game designs that have no bearing on EVE.

Couldn't say retention for certain but I have a few friends who have always avoided Eve simply because of the skill system and not wishing to deal with being so far behind the curve. I don't see how speeding up SP gain wouldn't change the retention rate, but I think it would greatly influence new players trying Eve knowing they could more quickly catch up.

Alt #45896 hammering GD to try and create a consensus.

The Skillpoint System and You

tldr; you are only ineffective as an individual early on. As you mature you will gain effectiveness. In the meantime, you will learn from those you team up with... enhancing your effectiveness in the long run.

To add to what Remiel says and more related to the skill system itself.

The current system is good — not just for EVE but for almost any game that decides to implement it — because it inherently removes the kinds of “old vs new” gap you're worried about. The skill system in this game is designed such that “catching up” isn't really even an applicable concept.

There is exactly on thing that a new character can't “catch up” in relation to an older player: total SP. As luck would have it, total SP is a worthless stat. This state of affairs is an improvement over how things worked not that long ago when high total SP had some meaning — a negative one. That negative result of high total SP is now gone, so now the total is meaningless.

For everything else, “catching up” is not only trivial — it is inevitable. That's why it can hardly even be said to apply to the game. But more than that, “catching up,” even if we were to submit that it exists, is also completely unnecessary. The concept you're looking for is applicable SP: the amount of abilities that are relevant to the current activity, ship, and context. In most cases, even if you max out everything, this number is less than a year's worth of SP. And even then, that year's worth of SP is trivially beaten by two month's worth due to how “maxing out” means you've wasted 80% of your time on almost entirely pointless modifiers that provides no tangible advantage.


It wouldn't change the retention rate because those players would still believe they're behind the curve, and they'd still be as fundamentally wrong as they are right now. Their problem is one of ignorance, not of mechanics. The problem they perceive doesn't exist in EVE — it's one they're assuming exists because it exists in other games that do not use the EVE skill system. In fact, that's the whole reason the problem exists in those other games.

Again, what you're asking for has been tried. It had almost the opposite effect: new players just “did the time” until the speed-up ended, and then started playing from that point instead… unless they gave up because they realised that they weren't actually playing the game. Right now, we have a system that starts new players further ahead. Ask your friends if they're willing to join now. Chances are that they'll still say no, in spite of this change, because the fundamental problem is still there: they assume the EVE skill system works in a way (or has consequences) that is almost diametrically opposed to reality.

If your friends simply joined and played together, they'd be in a position to swat beta-age players by, oh, day 3 or so.

Removed.